“A few veggies on the plate is always good. In addition to the zucchini bread, Mrs. Duncan has been inundating me with tomatoes and basil. I’ll make a salad.”
“My keen cop intuition tells me you probably drink white wine, right?”
“I drink red, too,” she assured him. “It’s not like I’m inflexible. But white goes better with fish.”
“I’ll pick up a bottle on the way home,” he said. “All I’ve got in the refrigerator is beer.”
There was a faint thump from the back room.
“Rex.”Charlotte rushed back out from behind the counter. She shot Slade a glowering look. “I told you to keep an eye on him.”
“Sorry.”
Rex appeared in the opening between the two rooms. He carried a small black evening bag studded with glittering black beads. The dainty purse was barely large enough to hold a lipstick and a compact.
Charlotte confronted him, her hands planted on her hips. “Step away from the clutch.”
To her amazement, Rex dropped the object at her feet.
“I think he likes you,” Slade said. “Usually he ignores commands like that. What is that thing?”
“A very nice Claudia Lockwood evening clutch bag. It’s worth several hundred dollars in good condition and this purse is mint.”
Rex sat back on his haunches and fixed her with an expectant expression.
“He wants you to throw the purse,” Slade said.
“Forget it. This thing is too valuable to be used as a dust bunny toy.” She hesitated. “I didn’t know dust bunnies liked to play fetch.”
“Rex doesn’t exactly play fetch,” Slade said. “Not like a dog, at any rate. But if you throw an object he goes after it.”
“What does he do with it?”
“He kills it,” Slade said.
“Obviously you want to be careful what you throw for him.”
“Very careful,” Slade agreed.
She looked down at Rex. “Sorry, Rex. I can’t let you rip this to pieces.”
Rex’s expression intensified. He was utterly still on his rear legs, a statue of a dust bunny.
Charlotte laughed. “Do you think he’s trying to use psychic power to make me do what he wants?”
“Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“You can’t have the purse,” she said to Rex. “How about a duck?”
She went to the counter and picked up the small, yellow rubber duck sitting near the cash register. She squeezed the duck a couple of times. The duck squeaked. Rex was electrified with excitement.
She tossed the duck into the back room. Rex leaped to follow. There was a thump. Several increasingly faint, desperate squeaks could be heard. Eventually there was silence followed by much gleeful chortling.
“Something tells me the duck didn’t make it,” Charlotte said. She went behind the counter and poured the coffee. She set the mug on the counter in front of Slade. She studied his cool cop eyes.
“You know who was inside my shop last night, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” Slade said. He picked up the coffee mug. “I’ll talk to him. It won’t happen again.”
Chapter 2
HANK LEVENSON TOSSED THE HEADLESS, TAILLESS FISH onto the scale. “Lot of expensive Amber River salmon for one person to eat. Planning on sharing with the dust bunny? I can always sell you a smaller piece of the salmon and give you some cheap bottom fish for Rex. Doubt if he’d know the difference.”
Slade leaned one arm against the glass display case and contemplated his options. There was no point trying to finesse the situation. The news that he’d had dinner with the owner of Looking Glass Antiques would be all over Shadow Bay by tomorrow morning, no matter what he did.
“I’m not so sure that Rex wouldn’t know the difference,” he said. “He’s damn picky. He’ll get some of that salmon but I’m planning on sharing the rest with a dinner guest.”
“A guest, hmm?” Hank swept the salmon off the scale and wrapped the silvery fish in brown paper. “Would that be Charlotte Enright, by any chance?”
“What was your first clue?”
Hank snorted. “Saw you come out of her shop this morning. Had a feeling you and she might get on well together.”
Hank was in his late sixties. He had grown up on Rainshadow and he was endowed with the tough, weathered features of a man who had spent his life on or around the water. When he reached for a strip of tape to seal the package of salmon, a portion of an old tattoo appeared beneath the rolled-back sleeve of his shirt. The image was that of a mythical sea serpent.
“Charlotte thought she had a breakin last night,” Slade said. “I went to her shop to check it out.”
“Yeah?” Hank looked up, eyes faintly narrowed in concern. “Anything stolen?”
“Who knows?”
Hank snorted. “Good point. That place is crammed with junk. Beatrix Enright was a very strange woman and she got more eccentric toward the end. She was obsessed with those antiques of hers.”
Slade remembered the talk he had overheard that long-ago summer when he had worked at the marina. “I remember. Everyone thought she was a little weird fifteen years ago.”
“She got even more odd as time went by, and that’s saying something around here. Rainshadow attracts a lot of eccentrics. We know the type well. The thing about Beatrix was that she was always buying antiques from estate sales and the like but she never seemed to worry much about selling the stuff, leastways not as far as I could tell.”
“She managed to keep the business going,” Slade pointed out.
“That’s a fact. Sometimes I got the feeling that she was searching for some particular object but whatever it was, I don’t think she ever found it. What happened to make Charlotte think that she’d had an intruder?”
“She found the back door of the shop unlocked this morning. It made her nervous. But as far as she can tell, nothing is missing.”
“City girl.” Hank nodded in a knowing way. “Glad it was nothing serious. But then, we don’t have a lot of trouble around here.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Slade said.
“Once in a while we have a few problems with some of the boating crowd on the long summer weekends. A little local drunk and disorderly stuff. And there are always a few hot-weed dealers operating in the islands, as you discovered this week.”
“Right.” Slade glanced at his watch.
“The Amber Sea Islands have always been popular with smugglers, drug runners, and pirates.” There was a note of pride in Hank’s voice. “Long history of that sort of thing around here. Fifty years ago, Captain Harry Sebastian himself sailed these waters. Legend has it he buried his treasure somewhere on Rainshadow.”
“And then disappeared, presumably murdered by his former business partner who felt he had a claim to the treasure. I know the story. Heard it fifteen years ago.”
Hank winked. “They say Sebastian’s ghost walks the Preserve at night.”
“If I see him, I’ll arrest him.”
Hank laughed. “You do that.”
Slade took another look at the portion of the tattoo that was visible on Hank’s arm. He’d seen similar tats, mostly on old smugglers.
“But generally speaking, the Bay is a real quiet place,” Hank continued with satisfaction. “Yes, sir, I’d say it’s the perfect little town for a man in your profession.”
“So people keep telling me.” Slade reached for his wallet. “What do I owe you?”
“Nineteen ninety-five. I gave you the local rate.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Hank handed over the package of fish and lounged against the counter. “No, sir, don’t have any of the usual big-city-crime problems here on Rainshadow.”
“I’ve noticed.”
No rogue psychics to profile, Slade thought. No serial killers. No investigations of murder by paranormal means. And it was just as well because he was no longer able to handle that kind of work.
“Got to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect when that Reflections business opened up at the old lake lodge a few months back,” Hank continued. “But so far the folks coming in for the retreats seem like a quiet, well-behaved bunch. They spend money in the shops. The chef at the lodge buys his fish from me, so I’m not complaining.”